


No Competition

by days_of_storm



Series: Vignettes on Ice [3]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: But for some reason, Emotional Manipulation, Katsuki Yuuri Is a Victor Nikiforov Fan, M/M, POV Victor Nikiforov, Pining Victor Nikiforov, Victor Nikiforov is Extra, Victor realises coming to Hasetsu was not the best idea he had ever had, Victor really fancies Yuuri, Yuri Plisetsky is Extra, Yuuri seems to be okay with him being there anyway, emotional blackmail
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-03 06:18:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16320764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/days_of_storm/pseuds/days_of_storm
Summary: Victor has come to Hasetsu but what he finds there is not what he expected (I just cracked myself up with this clickbait summary). *cough* okay, so, anyhow. Victor has completely overestimated the fanfare that would greet him in Japan, and he comes to the painful realisation that Yuuri had no idea why he came in the first place.





	No Competition

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mazarin221b](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mazarin221b/gifts).



> This is a retelling of Ep 2 and 3 from Victor's POV. I wanted to explore his own learning process, because he's a bit of an arrogant git in these episodes, but I think he's just completely out of his depth, so ... well, this is what happens behind the scenes.
> 
> _____________________________________________________________________________
> 
> Warning: I've written this and the other stories with changes to the canonical timelines and occasionally even the order of events to fit my narrative and the character development. So please be aware that I am not necessarily sticking to the timeline in the series!

Yuuri didn’t remember. 

It had taken him a while to understand that Yuuri really had no idea why he had come to Japan. The look on his face when he had stood up in the Onsen, wanting to tease, but achieving the opposite effect. He had eaten too much and fallen asleep, suddenly overwhelmed by his jetlag and the aftermath of too much adrenaline. He had imagined the meeting so many times on the plane to Japan, and while most of them did not necessarily involve snogging, he had hoped for a hug at least. 

Initially he had believed that it might be the family. That Yuuri tried not to let his excitement show. He didn’t know enough about Japanese culture, so he chalked it up to that. It was a decidedly different scenario without the rest of the skaters present and enough Champagne to get each single one of them helplessly drunk. Here, the air was crisp and it was almost silent. 

Yuuri had blushed intensely when he had found him in the bath, and Victor was afraid that it wasn’t a flirty kind of blush. Yuuri had been properly embarrassed and it had knocked Victor’s confidence down a few notches. 

He had been further embarrassed when he had woken up in the middle of the family’s little restaurant. Unsure, how long he had slept, he felt slightly overwhelmed by it all. So he did one thing he hated most about himself. He became arrogant, asked for more food, and began telling Yuuri to lose weight and to start exercising again even as he was shovelling down Yuuri’s favourite meal. 

Yuuri had looked like he was about to cry. Unable to take his words back and unwilling to hurt Yuuri more than he already had, he was incredibly grateful to Yuuri’s sister when she demanded he move the boxes he had express sent to Japan. While he helped sort them out, he realised how terribly he had overestimated his welcome. Nobody had expected him to bring more than a suitcase and they only seemed to tolerate him because he was Yuuri’s friend. And that was also a lie. 

He hid in the bathroom for a while, wishing that he would have some alcohol to numb his racing thoughts. He was completely out of his depth. He had achieved the opposite of what he had wanted where Yuuri was concerned, and had no idea how to make it right. 

He left the bathroom still so deeply in thought that he only realised he had walked into the wrong direction when he found himself in a room plastered with posters of himself. For a moment, he just stood there, staring at his own face across the room from him. Then he took a deep breath and stepped into the middle of the room, turning around himself once, his heart hammering away. 

He suddenly understood Yuuri’s discomfort. His shyness all through the season. His request, once he was drunk enough to not feel inhibited by his admiration for him. Yuuri admired him. The thought bounced back and forth in his mind as he took in the photos, posters and newspaper cut outs. There was one framed photo on the desk. It showed him on the podium, kissing his gold medal. Next to it, in silver marker, stood _one day_. A heart was drawn above Victor’s head. 

His heart was beating heavily against his chest when he left the room, pulled the door closed as quietly as he could, and made his way back into his own room. Yuuri’s family knew who he was. And Yuuri was left to deal with what must have been a deeply uncomfortable situation. And all he had done was to embarrass him further, flashing him in the Onsen, mocking his weight and being an arrogant prick who expected the red carpet wherever he went. 

He almost apologised when he found Yuuri preparing his room for him, but then he figured that Yuuri would be even more embarrassed if he knew that he had seen his room, so he kept quiet and smiled at him, and attempted some small talk. 

Nevertheless, his thoughts went back to the party and Yuuri’s body pressed against his own, and after a while, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to stay if he did not address his own infatuation. So he tried flirting. It was less subtle than he had hoped and when he asked Yuuri about his love life he could almost hear Yuuri’s heart skip. He had taken his hand and Yuuri had not pulled back, and he counted that as a small victory. When he told him that they needed to build trust before he could start training him, he meant himself more than Yuuri, but judging from Yuuri’s flight it had come across as something completely different. That, or it might have been his robe which had gaped open as he had bent down. He tightened it again, wondering if he was only adding to Yuuri’s discomfort. 

The fact that Yuuri looked more flustered than he had all day drove a spark of heat down his back. Yuuri had leaned against the wall outside of his room, his cheeks flushed, his breath too quick, and he had pushed up his glasses in an adorably awkward way. Then he had apologised and disappeared in his room. 

Victor busied himself with unpacking, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach. Yuuri admired him, but he neither remembered that Victor was here to make good on his promise, nor did he seem very pleased to have him disrupt his life unannounced. He tried to sleep, but his thoughts kept circling back to the embrace and the video, which seemed to show an entirely different person than the Yuuri he had found in Hasetsu. 

But, and that gave him hope, Yuuri had not told him to leave yet. 

After he lay awake for an hour, watching the snow silently brush the windows, he took his pillow and walked to the end of the corridor, knocking on Yuuri’s door. He knew he was pushing it when he said that they should sleep together, hoping that Yuuri might be interested after all, but being perfectly ready to sleep on the floor next to Yuuri’s bed, and maybe, finally, coming clean about why he was here.

Yuuri’s panicked protest worried him a little, but then he heard him move around his room, plucking posters from the walls, and he realised that he had, once again, completely missed the obvious. Of course, Yuuri wouldn’t want him in his room. On top of it all, it was his childhood room, in his family home. What would it look like if a newly arrived guest was found sleeping in a room full of posters of himself. 

He quietly apologised to the door and made his way back into his room. He lay awake for a while, trying to think of anything but the mistakes he had made since arriving in Hasetsu. The last thought he had before sleep took him was that, despite it all, he felt more alive now than he had in a year. 

In the morning, Yuuri brought him tea. He already wore training clothes and sat down next to him. He waited until Victor had finished the tea before he held out his hand to him. Victor was surprised by the gesture and carefully took it. 

“Thank you,” Yuuri said quietly, looking straight into his eyes. “I am ready to begin the training, I think.”

Victor squeezed his hand gently, rubbing his thumb across Yuuri’s once. “Good,” he said, feeling his heart flutter when Yuuri blushed a little. “I’ll be ready in a moment.” 

Yuuri ran ahead while he followed him on the bike until he was too out of breath and Victor overtook him. Realising that it wouldn’t motivate Yuuri to run after him, he let him pass again, smiling at him. It was strange to see him struggle like that. When Yuuri had struggled on the ice, it had never been about strength or speed. He was stronger than most skaters and he could jump higher, when he trusted himself. But right now he seemed overwhelmed, and Victor hoped that he would calm down so they could truly get to know each other. 

While Victor was still embarrassed about all the different things he had simply assumed, he was painfully aware how his heart sped up every time Yuuri looked at him. And, despite it all, he was sure that Yuuri was not confused by his presence and that he had barged into his life like he owned it. He seemed worried, like he couldn’t understand why he had come. He really, truly did not remember that party. 

Lost in thought, he almost crashed into Yuuri, who had stopped running to catch his breath. The brakes squealed and Yuuri jumped to the side, staring at him with wide eyes. 

“I’m sorry,” Victor gasped, more out of breath than he should be. “I’m so sorry!”

Yuuri’s face was flushed from exhaustion and the cold of the morning wind. But his eyes reflected something different. A smile that hadn’t reached his lips yet, but that was dancing around his eyes. 

“Distracted?” Yuuri said, his voice teasingly low. 

And Victor felt himself blush. It had been a long time since that had happened and he was mortified to feel his face burn like that. To know that he couldn’t control it. 

“Where is the rink?” he asked instead, unable to look away from Yuuri’s face. The smile lit up his entire face now. He looked stunning. 

_Oh god_ , Victor thought, _what am I doing here?_

“Over there! It’s not far.”

For the final few steps Makkachin happily ran up the short way and then came bouncing back again, licking their hands. He seemed blissfully unaware of the tension between the two, and his behaviour helped to soften the edges a little. 

Once they had entered the skating rink and he had caught his breath, Yuuri seemed much more confident. His movements were practiced, a routine, and he held himself a little straighter, like he was already on skates. Victor introduced himself as Yuuri’s new coach and his heart skipped a beat when he found Yuuri looking at him as if he only now realised that he was serious. He nodded, as if to stress the point, being rewarded with another smile that went straight into his heart. 

He changed into his training clothes and put on his skates. It had been a while since he had been excited to get to know a new rink and he winked at Yuuri before he stepped on the ice, skating its length and doing a few warming up exercises. He knew he should have stretched before, but he selfishly wanted to be watched by Yuuri. 

And Yuuri didn’t look away. Even when he was talking to the staff members, who seemed to be good friends, his eyes were on him the whole time. Once more he realised that he didn’t know anything about Yuuri and that he truly wanted to get to know him better. He already knew that he was an excellent skater and that he could be utterly amazing if he only trusted himself. He also knew that Yuuri had no idea how attractive he was, and how beautiful, when he was skating without pressure. How soft his features had been when he had skated Victor’s routine. How sensually his lips had curved into a smile after he had landed his jumps. His entire physique reading ballet dancer more than figure skater. God, he wished he could show Yuuri what he saw in him. 

After fifteen minutes on the ice, he realised how silly he must seem, having introduced himself as Yuuri’s new coach and then taken all this time on the ice just to be admired by the handful of people present. So, where could he start? Yuuri’s strength? Should he be worried about his joints? His ankles and knees would need support if he hadn’t trained properly in a while. 

He skated past Yuuri and smiled at him, and then blurted out the worst possible thing. “The little piggy can’t enter the rink until he drops some body fat.”

The fact that Yuuri did not walk out on him right then and there seemed like a miracle to Victor, and he knew that he should apologise to him. But apologising would mean saying the things he really meant to say and that might make it worse. So he watched Yuuri process what he had said and then watched him push his shoulders back as if he had accepted the challenge. 

In this moment Victor realised that he was treading on very dangerous ground with Yuuri. He would take any criticism to heart, but if it came from him, he would ignore the insult and somehow filter out what he needed. It would be very easy to manipulate him. Hell, he already had manipulated him in letting him stay and be his coach. And it would be very easy to hurt him without him actually noticing what was being done to him. 

Fondness and sadness battled in his heart as he watched Yuuri push his glasses up again. He needed to be better to him. He needed to help him properly, and abusing Yuuri’s admiration for him was a terrible idea. 

When they left the rink, Yuuri told him to go back home as he was going to see Minako, his ballet instructor. The one who had been there when Victor had woken up in the middle of the dining room the day before. It was his embarrassment at the memory that kept him from asking if he could tag along. Instead, he simply nodded and called after Makkachin to come with him. He regretted not saying anything else to Yuuri the entire way back. 

He drank and ate too much, chatting with Yuuri’s parents, who were surprisingly disinterested in figure skating, about Russian cuisine, and consequently went to bed before Yuuri had returned home. When he got up in the morning and sleepily patted into the bathroom, he found Yuuri already up, brushing his teeth.

His hair was wet from the shower and stuck out at odd angles, and he only had a towel wrapped around his hips. 

“Morning,” Yuuri said around his toothbrush, squinting a little without his glasses. 

“Sorry,” Victor said awkwardly, trying very hard not to let his eyes wander below Yuuri’s shoulders. 

“I’ll be done in a minute,” Yuuri said after he had washed his mouth and rubbed at his face with another towel. Victor had lost his inner fight and allowed himself a lingering glance at the almost naked object of his affection.

Yuuri wasn’t overweight by normal standards. He had a little tummy and his whole body seemed impossibly soft, even though his muscles were clearly defined. If he hadn’t been a figure skater, he would have had a perfect body in Victor’s book. No. He had the perfect body. And a perfect smile. And Victor had been staring at him like a lunatic for too long. 

“Are you alright?” Yuuri asked, scratching his stomach a little. 

“Sorry. I need to pee,” Victor said sheepishly and Yuuri chuckled. 

“You could have just said.”

“Sorry.”

“I’ll get ready for a run then?”

Victor nodded and slipped past him into the bathroom. He tried to will his erection away, but no matter what he tried to think of, the recent images kept returning to him. Pressing his face against his arm, which he had propped against the tiles in the shower, he brought himself to a quick orgasm that left his toes tingly and his stomach in knots. 

When he had gotten dressed, he felt guilty and he did not quite know why. His mood lifted somewhat when he watched Yuuri stretch and sprint down a stretch of the sidewalk only to run backwards and giggle at his own breathlessness. After half a day of stretching, running up and down stairs and abusing the benches near the Ninja Palace as work-out tools, they sat in companionable silence. Yuuri was drinking from a water bottle, which he held out to him with a smile. 

“Thank you,” was all Victor managed. 

“How long?” Yuuri asked after a while. 

“Pardon?”

“How long until I can skate.”

Victor looked at him, wondering if Yuuri would berate him for his body shaming, but instead he looked at him with an open face, expecting an honest answer. 

“A couple of weeks, maybe? Don’t overdo it, though.”

Yuuri nodded and looked away again. “Okay.”

The days that followed blurred into one long series of workouts for Yuuri in the mornings, and skating for Victor in the afternoon. Yuuri hadn’t put on his skates all this time and Victor itched to tell him to defy him and skate anyway, but he knew that Yuuri would do what he told him. Once more, he felt uncomfortable at the thought, but now it was a more complex feeling, because Yuuri exerted himself when he asked him to. He was absolutely willing to go where Victor wanted him to go and at night, just before sleep took him, this realisation had been coloured by a decidedly different interpretation of Yuuri’s willingness to be guided. 

Watching him stretch became dangerous. Relaxing in the Onsen even more. Several times, Yuuri had almost fallen asleep in the bath and Victor had moved closer in order to make sure that he wouldn’t slip under the surface. Each time he had woken up, Yuuri had looked at him with wide eyes, as if he couldn’t quite believe that he was there, and then he had smiled and apologised for falling asleep again. 

Still feeling self-conscious about that morning in the bathroom, Victor avoided looking at Yuuri when he stepped into the water and when he left it again. Several times, Victor had made sure to go in ahead of him, feeling strangely silly for wanting Yuuri to find him attractive, while knowing that he admired him like a rock star. It couldn’t be comfortable for him to see him naked, even in the surrounding of an Onsen where everyone was by rule. And yet, he hoped that Yuuri stole glances at him, even if he never caught him staring. 

In the evenings, when they sat together in the dining room, each time with new, curious guests around to catch a glimpse of the star who had come to their town, Yuuri ate rice and salad and yet insisted that Victor eat his favourite food. Those evenings were free of sexual tension, but Victor’s heart contracted each time their hands accidentally touched and very often he caught himself lost in Yuuri’s voice as he quietly talked about his home town. 

He had learned a lot about him by then, but whenever he asked Yuuri about his former relationships, he blushed and changed the topic. He had come to suspect that Yuuri simply had never been in a lasting relationship and the idea made his heart ache. 

Every now and again, he said offensive things when he meant to say something else entirely, but Yuuri seemed to have developed a strange resistance to his rudeness and found a way to interpret his words to mean exactly what he had meant to say. 

If Yuuri used the gym in the skating rink and Victor skated, the frequently met in the changing rooms without having set a time to finish training. They showered together, both of them slightly more comfortable in each other’s presence when they were naked. While Victor still found it incredibly hard not to stare at Yuuri openly, he did allow himself some appreciative glances, if only to check on Yuuri’s changing body. The softness was slowly giving way to more definition. Yuuri had lost almost all of the extra weight, but Victor was worried that it had happened too fast and that Yuuri might overtax his body with training. But he never complained and he always seemed happy to run up the stairs to the castle, even if his body must have hurt him almost constantly. 

His dedication was impressive and his tolerance for pain seemed scarily high. When Yuuri sat down on a park bench with a grunt after another times sprint up the stairs to the Ninja Castle, Victor wanted to pull him into a hug and tell him to take things easy. Instead, he made small talk and managed to make Yuuri feel uncomfortable again by talking about one of his exes. 

After a long day of training, Victor decided that they both needed some down time. “Well done, today, Yuuri. Let’s go and do some proper sightseeing.” 

They visited several of the landmarks and Victor’s presence felt right for the first time. Yuuri explained everything to him while he listened and took silly selfies while Yuuri chuckled and shook his head, apologising for him every now and then.

Four weeks after he had first arrived in Hasetsu, Victor put his own pork cutlet bowl in front of Yuuri and announced that tomorrow he would start skating again. The smile on Yuuri’s face left him a little light headed, and the tight embrace he received in answer left him breathless. He brushed his hair out of his eyes and leaned in close. He could hear Yuuri’s breath hitch and for a moment he wanted nothing more than to close that final gap and press his lips to Yuuri’s. Then he remembered that he was supposed to be his coach and he pulled back just a little. “Tomorrow, you show me what you can do when you are not under pressure.”

Yuuri grinned and touched his face fleetingly. “You watching me is pressure enough,” he admitted, lowering his eyes just to look up at him again bashfully, knocking the breath out of Victor.

“I’m your coach, not your competition,” he complained, hoping his voice sounded less shaky to Yuuri than to himself. 

“You’re the best skater in the world,” Yuuri shrugged. “And you came here to coach me, spending valuable time on me without having seen me skate yet. I think that qualifies as pressure.”

Victor chuckled and ruffled Yuuri’s hair. “Eat your food. It’s going to be a while until you get to eat it again.” He let his fingers linger against the nape of his neck just a little too long and Yuuri stopped moving for a moment as if to wait for something else to happen. 

But then he just grinned and began shovelling rice and pork strips into his mouth. 

And then Yuri Plisetsky showed up and changed the dynamic entirely. Maybe it was a Russian thing, he wondered, showing up unannounced and claiming space that wasn’t theirs to claim. But then he realised that he was being unfair to his countrymen and that the fault was his own. Yuri was a tiny, stubborn version of himself. While he had hoped to pass on his good character traits, he knew that Yuri was incredibly good at being rude and getting away with it, because he was an angel-faced teenager with a shock of blond hair that made him seem almost helplessly vulnerable. And maybe he was. Yuri had never truly opened up to him, but scowled at everything he said. And yet, he had listened to him and learned from him and now he had come to continue his education. 

Yuuri was too polite to say anything and once Yuri had forced his hand and he proposed to train both of them and to hold a competition to see which one of the two was better, he realised that, for the first time in a long time, he couldn’t control the outcome of the events as they unfolded. 

They hadn’t trained that day, even if Victor had promised they would, and Yuuri had disappeared on the evening of Yuri’s arrival without saying where he was going. Victor had become truly worried. Maybe he should have declined Yuri’s suggestion in the first place. He had forgotten that he had promised that he would choreograph a program for him, but right now it really wasn’t a priority for him. His priority was to see Yuuri smile at him. 

He went out looking for hom, and ended up chatting with Minako, who offered him drinks and stories about Yuuri’s childhood and teenage years. The only place left to look after that was the rink, so he took his bike to the Ice Castle and found him practicing there. With a smile, he realised that Yuuri had simply claimed his promised time on the ice, but he also felt slightly guilty, having been told my Yuuri’s friends that he skated in the evenings when he grew anxious. So this wasn’t just training for him. It was therapy. 

They also told him that Yuuri didn’t make friends easily, and Victor felt a small stab of pain in his heart. He wondered if Yuuri had been bullied as a child and he realised that his apparent nonchalance to his own rudeness might be a trained coping mechanism. Yuuri didn’t stand up for himself and it was difficult for Victor to realise that he hadn’t really given him a chance in the first place. He had assumed so many things about him, but now he realised that him showing up in Hasetsu must have seemed like a miracle to Yuuri. One that he couldn’t explain and which was now threatened by the presence of an angry teenager who had come to claim him for himself. 

He slept worse from that night on, and more than once found himself in front of Yuuri’s door, wanting to apologise for putting him into a situation that put more pressure on him than he had ever meant to. But he never knocked. 

Instead, he did the one selfish thing he could do to regain a bit of control. He gave Yuri a task he was almost sure he wouldn’t be able to fulfil, but which would help him make progress in any case. And he gave Yuuri a choreography that was purely and selfishly sexy. When he told them about the assignments and skated it for them, he could see fear in both of them. But for Yuri it was the knowledge that what Victor was asking of him was something he would have to be open and honest about and that was simply something he didn’t do. It would be challenging but possible for him to skate the program, but the underlying meaning would be just as important and that was something he simply did not want to do. 

For Yuuri, the fear was different. He seemed to realise now why Victor had always asked him about his former lovers. Why he had wanted to know things about him that he wasn’t willing or able to talk about. Yuuri was filled with love for the people in his family, for some of his fellow skaters, for his dog, for Minako. He could have easily skated Yuri’s program and blown everyone away. But he had no idea how to approach passionate love on the ice and Victor could read it plainly on his face. Yet, when he asked him what Yuuri would do to win, he admitted that what he truly wanted was for Victor to stay. He wanted to win so he could eat pork cutlet bowls with him. 

Victor had no idea how to handle that confession, because it was the first time Yuuri had freely given voice to his own wishes and simultaneously absolved Victor of his transgressions. And part of that was him wanting Victor to be part of his life. Not as his coach. As his friend.

He knew he would probably regret it later, but he told himself that maybe it would actually help him in the long run. He skated close enough to Yuuri that their chests almost touched and then he tipped up his chin, running his thumb along Yuuri’s bottom lip, and lowered his voice, making sure that only Yuuri could understand him. “Find your eros,” he whispered. “Show me. I know you have it inside of you. Let it out.”

Yuuri’s breath was shallow and his pupils blown and Victor wished that they would be alone, because for a moment, he was sure that Yuuri would have kissed him if they had been by themselves. 

Yuri interrupted their intimate moment by demanding Victor’s attention, but he swallowed his annoyance and began working with him instead of Yuuri. 

When he taught Yuri his program, the technicalities proved to be no great challenge to him, but it was all superficial, so he sent him out to meditate, hoping he might be able to take the edge off for him and to make him less angry. It worked a little, because Yuri yelled less and spent more time thinking, but as soon as he was on the ice, he forgot what he was supposed to be doing and concentrated on the technique only. 

With Yuuri, it was different. When Victor showed him his choreography, he made sure to look at Yuuri the entire time. He was touching himself, winking at him, even blowing him a kiss at one point, and Yuuri blushed scarlet, but he looked at him the entire time, taking in every second of his routine. 

But when Yuuri tried to skate, he faltered halfway through. He just stopped, staring into nothing. For a week, Yuuri couldn’t seem to concentrate, and he finally admitted that he had no idea how to interpret the passionate, sexual love Victor wanted to see in him. 

And while Victor wanted to lean in and whisper that he could show him, he swallowed his worlds and said nothing, letting Yuuri come to his own conclusion. 

It happened when they had dinner and Victor once again ate a bowl of Yuuri’s favourite food. He slapped hard on the table and looked at Victor as if he had suddenly seen the light. He faltered again when he confessed that he loved his mother’s pork cutlet bowl enough to find inspiration for passionate love in it, but Victor felt his heart grow two sizes when he watched him stare at the table in shame. 

“Whatever it takes,” he whispered when Yuri had wandered off to play with his phone and listen to a Russian grunge band he had discovered.

From that day on, Yuuri skated beautifully. He had memorized the routine, and he seemed much more confident in his own body, but struggled with the jumps. Victor knew he was showing off when he went through all the jumps piece by piece and then watched Yuuri do them, falling again and again. 

“What if I don’t watch?”

“It won’t help.”

“Why?”

“Because you will leave me if I don’t win.”

Victor’s heart hammered in his chest. He would have to, wouldn’t he? If Yuri was declared the winner of the competition, he would have to return to Moscow and train him. He hadn’t known what to say to that, but had felt slightly sick that evening, cuddling with his dog and watching the video that had brought him here.

If he would have to leave, at least he would confess his feelings for him, he decided. And he would apologise for walking into his room and finding out about his obsession with him. And maybe Yuuri would forgive him and confess that he hadn’t meant pork cutlet bowls after all and they would kiss and they’d resolve to go to Moscow together and …

He started at the rapping against the door.

“Come in!” he called, and Yuuri stuck his head through the door. “Yuri caught a cold in the waterfall,” he said quietly. “I think we shouldn’t train tomorrow. Let him recover a little?”

“Sure. Yes. Take a break.”

“Are you alright?”

“Hmm?”

“You looked sad just now.” Yuuri opened the door a little more, inviting Victor to invite him in. 

“I’m fine,” he lied, shaking his head. 

Yuuri watched him for another few seconds before he bowed lightly. “Sorry to have bothered you.” He pulled the door closed and Victor wanted nothing more than to go after him, draw him into his arms and tell him that it was impossible for him to bother him with his presence. Once more, he did not do what his heart dictated him to do, and he ended up feeling even more miserable for himself. 

He went to a neighbouring town to do some sightseeing the next day, and even though Yuuri and Yuri trained the day after, he did not go to the skating rink until the evening. He watched them secretly for a while, feeling infinitely better when he found that they were helping each other instead of fighting. 

When he entered the rink, they pretended that nothing had happened, but he felt a huge weight lifted off his shoulders. When he saw Yuri skate, he could tell that he had reached a new understanding of what he was supposed to be doing. He finally saw him unlock some of his own potential. 

Yuuri’s routine was breath-taking, but Victor could tell that he was not satisfied with his own performance, but that he was unable to find a solution. Once more, he played with the thought of just telling him why he had really come to Hasetsu, but he knew that it would overwhelm Yuuri and possibly achieve the opposite effect of what he wanted. Even someone as strong and enduring as Yuuri had a breaking point, and his fear that Victor would leave him seemed to have brought him fairly close to that already. 

It had been days since Yuuri had smiled at him when Victor announced that he had shipped all of his old costumes to Hasetsu so that both of them could choose an outfit for the competition. And he was rewarded not only with smiles, but with proper, uninhibited happiness. Yuuri glowed as he dug through his old outfits, touching them with reverence and naming the dates and places where Victor had worn them. He seemed completely unaware that even if Victor had not seen his room, he would know by then that Yuuri was a huge fan of his. 

And while many people had declared their love for him and his skating, he had never really felt flattered. It happened so often that he had decided to just smile and politely pose for pictures and give autographs, but to not let it go to his head. Which was probably another lie he told to himself to function. But what did they know, really? He could smile and cock his hip and people would gush about his technique. 

But Yuuri, who had copied him step for step and loved every single movement in his routine, knew how hard he had worked. He knew what it meant to be on the ice and disappear for a while. It was the one thing he was absolutely sure about where it came to Yuuri. He did not admire him for his skill. He admired him, because they felt the same on the ice. 

He was ripped out of his musings when Yuuri held up a costume that he wanted to wear and Victor became achingly aware of the fact that his own second skin would cover Yuuri’s tomorrow. 

When he tried to sleep that night, his thoughts returned to the moment Yuuri had exclaimed that he wanted to eat pork cutlet bowls with him. By now, it was not only Yuuri’s favourite food, but Victor’s too. And now the dish was his eros. A symbol for his passionate love. 

Something about that was important, but Victor couldn’t quite put his finger on it. 

When he arrived at the rink in the morning, having avoided the competitors in order to process that the day would bring a decision about his own professional future, he was immediately reproached by Yuri for gushing about Hasetsu. When Yuri accused him of having forgotten about his promise to coach the winner of the competition, he did not correct him. Maybe if Yuri thought that Victor was truly forgetful, he might forgive him for changing his mind. 

He watched them both warm up. Yuri was grumpy, but kept to himself. And Yuuri was … strangely calm. That couldn’t be right, could it? If he knew him at all, he should be pacing the room by now, questioning all of his life decisions that had led him here. If he was honest with himself, he felt like doing exactly that himself. But then Yuri was called out to skate and he had to watch him and look away from Yuuri’s tense shoulders. 

He stood close to him as they watched Yuri skate a flawless program. His jumps were brilliant and clean and his movements spoke of flexibility and grace. But he lacked again what he had gained over the last few days. He was skating the program he had been given, not the program he had adapted for himself. 

Victor was honestly surprised by how good he had become and he felt the slightest bit disappointed that he had not quite managed to reach the place Victor knew he was capable of going. There was so much potential that he could still unlock in him. So much that Yuri didn’t know he had in him that went beyond flawless jumps and a clean skate. 

But now it was Yuuri’s turn. He found him staring at the floor, tears in his eyes, his hands balled to fists. Did he think he had lost already? Was he scared of going out and skating in front of a full arena? Everyone in the audience supported him, he was sure of that. So why was Yuuri panicking?

He stood in front of him and tried to be as calm and composed as possible without scaring Yuuri further. “Yuuri, it’s your turn.”

Yuuri looked up and seemed surprised to see him standing so close to him. He pressed his hands against his face, hiding, even as he was looking at him. But then he dropped his hands and told Victor that he would turn into a tasty pork cutlet bowl and that he needed him to watch him do that, and it should have been ridiculous, if Victor hadn’t realised what he was saying just then. They both had confessed their love for the food repeatedly. The dish was Yuuri’s understanding of Eros. And now he wanted to embody that for him. 

Before Victor could second guess Yuuri’s confession, he was drawn into a tight embrace. Yuuri pressed his whole body against him, his arms locked around his shoulders, his face pressing against his neck. 

“Of course,” he said breathlessly. “I love pork cutled bowls.”

He could feel Yuuri’s body stiffen for a moment and his arms pulled him even more tightly against him. Then he let go and made his way onto the ice. The fear and the panic seemed to have magically vanished and for the first time since arriving in Hasetsu, Victor allowed himself a glimmer of hope that Yuuri’s admiration for him was not purely platonic. 

And his performance was breath-taking. He did exactly what Victor had done to him that first time he had showed him the routine. He shamelessly flirted with him, his eyes finding him whenever the time allowed it. But he did not only copy him. He moved in a way that was entirely unexpected and new. His hips swayed more, his arms moved more gracefully, his hands touched his own body seductively and even his step sequences seemed different and light footed. When he had to use one hand to keep from falling after a jump Victor felt pride swell in his chest. Yuuri had flunked most of the jumps in practice, and now he had managed to land one without falling. 

He watched him with a heavily beating heart, wondering if Yuuri knew what he had meant with those last words be had said to him. If they played a tiny role in the changes to his program. 

Probably not, he berated himself when Yuuri landed a flawless quad. This confidence had come from deep inside Yuuri, unlocked by whatever he had done to be able to move like that. He caught a glimpse of Minako, smiling and nodding, with tears running down her cheeks. 

It must have been her, then. His oldest mentor and one of the few friends he had. She had managed to unlock in him what Victor had tried time and time again and never quite succeeded in achieving. He suddenly wished that he had gotten over his embarrassment and watched Yuuri at ballet. 

When the routine ended, he couldn’t stop smiling. No matter how good Yuri’s performance had been, he had been no competition at all. And even if Yuuri had fallen on his face, or completely failed at skating his choreography, he knew that he wouldn’t have the heart to leave him. Not now that there was a chance that he loved him back. 

Gobsmacked at his own realisation, he watched him stand in the middle of the rink, breathing heavily, his flushed face graced by a wide, uninhibited smile. 

He called out his name and spread his arms, and Yuuri came skating right into his embrace. He wanted to say so many things, but suddenly he found it impossible to find the words to express what he felt, so instead he gushed about how wonderful the performance had been. And because Yuuri hadn’t properly relaxed in his arms and he was suddenly gripped with panic that he might have misunderstood after all, he did what Yakov always did after his skates. He began talking about all the little things that Yuuri could have done better, and that only made it all more awkward than it already was. 

For a few minutes, they did not look at each other, and, once more, Victor considered apologising to him, but then he talked himself out of it, because it would mean addressing the underlying issue and that was what had made things awkward in the first place, so he just hid behind his water bottle and waited for the results. 

He was peripherally aware that Yuri seemed to have disappeared, but he found that he couldn’t really think about him now. Yuuri clearly had won the competition, becoming exactly what Victor had asked of him, and more, while Yuri had barely scraped the surface of the depth he had expected of him. 

But as long as the results had not been announced, there was still a chance that a young man filled with rage might demand that he become his coach instead of Yuuri’s, and it would make things that much harder. 

When the result was announced and Yuuri was placed more than fifteen points ahead of his young competitor, he felt a knot dissolve in his gut that he hadn’t quite realised was there. He turned to Yuuri and found him staring back at him, and when he smiled, Yuuri smiled back, relief clearly visible in his features. Someone whispered to him that Yuri had left the competition even before Yuuri had finished his program, and that he had declared that he would return to Russia and train under Yakov, and Victor felt so relieved he knew he wouldn’t be able to stand up for a moment. Eventually, he found his strength again and rose together with Yuuri. 

And together they stepped onto the podium where Yuuri received a flower bouquet and a trophy someone had made specifically for this special event. He had his arms full when he was handed a microphone and asked to speak to the visitors in the ranks, and Victor could feel him tense next to him. He wasn’t sure what it was that made Yuuri hesitate to speak up, but he knew that he was allowed to touch him now. So he put his arm around him, hoping that Yuuri would feel protected and safe, and to his infinite relief, he relaxed and announced that he would train under Victor and return to competitive figure skating. When he thanked everyone for their support, he leaned into Victor a little, and just for that small, private moment of intimacy in the midst of the public eye, Victor felt it had been worth giving up his own career for this. For him.

**Author's Note:**

> I called this series "vignettes". This clearly isn't one. But, well, I guess I like being in Victor's head.


End file.
